2021 Annual Forecast Release Notes | Updated
A message from Geopath

In preparation for the March 29th release, we want to share some important notes on what to expect as well as provide updates on key milestone dates.

Deadline for Adopting the 2021 Forecast 
Updated 2021 demographic audiences (previously available combinations of age, gender, ethnicity, household income) will be available on March 29th.

As such, we are asking that the 2021 release to become the official currency of the OOH industry on March 29th, 2021. On this date, the 2021 metrics should be used by all members for planning and transactional purposes. 

While the 2020 data will remain available in the Insights Suite, it should only be used for historical purposes moving forward. As always, Geopath members should clearly disclose which data vintage is being used when sharing Geopath audience data with other members or clients.

Important Release Updates  
Please see below for more details on the coming release.

2021 Demographic Audience Measures
As noted above, on March 29th, additional demographic audiences (previously available combinations of age, gender, ethnicity, household income) will be added to the API and the Insights Suite for roadside media (including street furniture), and place-based media (excluding transit station media). Click here to view a list of all the 2,700+ audiences availble in the API and Insights Suite. Additional consumer profile audiences will be released incrementally to the API and Insights Suite throughout April.

The 2021 transit forecast (scheduled fleet and station media) will be released pending committee review.

Reach/Frequency
On March 29th, unit level reach and frequency will be available in the API, and the Insights Suite Explore Module for the additional demographic audiences.

Similarly, package level reach and frequency will be available in the API, and in the new Workspace Module for these additional demographic audiences on March 29th. Note the new Workspace module will be become the default workflow on March 29th to allow for easier access to the 2021 audience data for planning.

Impression Variation Dashboard 2.0
The Impression Variation Dashboard 2.0 will also be available in the Insights Suite Reports Module on March 29th. 

As noted previously, the 2021 Impression Variation Dashboard will differ from the 2020 version. For 2021, the dashboard will analyze a week of observed activity versus the expected monthly average. This will provide a more precise view of forecasted versus observed delivery because the variation is relative to the expected seasonality of the audience delivery of OOH media types in a market.

Please note, that given the changes in how the impression variations are derived for 2021, these reports should only be used to understand variations against the 2021 forecast. 

Other Important Updates & Reminders
As a reminder, we announced in December 2020 that members should no longer be using the bus exterior measures available in OOH Plan and ADS for transactions.

Additionally, while our legacy systems (ADS and OOH Plan) have remained available to our members to allow access to this historical data for non-transactional purposes only, we will no longer be supporting these legacy tools. Both ADS and OOH Plan will be decommissioned on April 1st, 2021 as previously announced.

We recommend that users of these tools transition to the Insights Suite. If you would like training, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We would be happy to set up a custom training with your team. Training materials are also available in our geekOUT Library as well as the Learning Lab, our self-directed online training platform. Click here for more information on the Learning Lab and the training tools available to all our members.

Similarly, our inventory submission tool, TABview Online, will also be decommissioned on April 1st, 2021. Members can continue to submit inventory directly to our analysts using our inventory submission sheet.

Additional Support 
We will post these release notes to our blog, and update them with any additional information.

Contact Us! 
We hope this helps to answer many of the questions our members may have related to the upcoming release. Moving forward we will send out release notes to help our members when there are major changes that may impact inventory or our tools.

Please feel free to reach out to us on [email protected] with any additional questions.